Like many things in the life of the Griffiths, the wedding was a cause for celebration. Although Caroline pleaded with them to make it an ordinary day, Janet and Hywel made plans. Basil’s contribution was food. Rabbits to make some tasty pies, plus a couple of wild duck shot as they left the pond to fly out to sea where they spent the nights. He also brought some farm butter and cheese, for which he had bartered an illegally caught salmon. A new dress for her mother and even a white shirt for her father had Caroline in despair.
“Mam, we don’t want everyone to know about this wedding. It’s not a real marriage. Barry is marrying me so the baby will have his father’s name. He’ll be born a Martin instead of a Griffiths, that’s all there is to it. Now, can we forget parties and guest lists and treat it like a trip to the pictures, please?”
Janet thought it unlikely that it would stay a pretend marriage for long. How could a man be expected to stay under the same roof as his legal wife and not make the marriage a proper one? She smiled at her daughter and said, “No harm in making the day special, is there? Besides, you never know. My old mother-in-law used to say that propinquity contributed more to falling in love than a pretty face.”
Caroline had to laugh at this bit of nonsense. “Mam, my gran could neither read nor write so I’m sure she wouldn’t have known a word like propinquity!”
“Well, that’s what she meant!” Janet retorted.
Barry didn’t buy a new suit. With every penny needed for the new business it seemed an unnecessary expense. Besides, without his mother there it didn’t seem to matter somehow. He wondered where she was and if she would hear about the wedding and the grandchild Caroline was going to give her.
Melancholy overwhelmed him as Rhiannon came to mind and he was tempted to cancel the wedding and try once again to see her. But she had been so adamant. The goings-on of his mother and her father had been the cause, he was sure of that. But there must have been something more. If only she would talk to him, he might be able to change her mind. Perhaps it was her mother? Dora wouldn’t have relished the idea of Nia, her husband’s bit-on-the-side, becoming part of her family.
He had tried ringing the shop but once he gave his name he heard only the sound of the receiver being replaced. Ever since she had told him they could never marry, she had refused even to look at him. If he went to the shop she walked out and didn’t return until he left, and the phone calls were nothing more than silent reprimands, but for what, he didn’t really know.
News of the wedding drifted through the town and the crowd outside the register office on the day was surprisingly large. Hywel had borrowed a suit that almost fitted him; Basil looked more lanky than ever in trousers too short. Viv was smartly dressed in a sports coat and greys in his role as best man and Jack Weston, wearing a neat suit and dazzling white shirt felt overdressed and conspicuous.
After the brief ceremony, Jack Weston drove the couple back to the Griffithses’ for the meal prepared by Janet and the bride.
The party began quietly as guests fingered the food, nervously watching Caroline and Barry, who both looked close to tears. Then Basil took out an accordion, pulled a few chords and the atmosphere lightened. It was almost midnight before Caroline and Barry set off across the fields for Chestnut Road, where they would live until Nia returned.
Rhiannon lived every moment of their wedding day with them, imagining the wedding couple setting out across the fields as man and wife. She pictured them gathering at the register office, following the ceremony that would take Barry away from her for ever. In her mind she heard the lively celebrations at the Griffithses’ old cottage. She knew Viv was there, and, at Basil’s request, had taken Eleri. Tomorrow they’d want to talk about it but she wouldn’t be able to cope with that. At nine o’clock, she went to The Firs to see her father.
Lewis was sitting in his room looking through some photographs Dora had thrown in a box with his ration book and a few forms he might need.
“Come in, love. On your own, are you?”
“Viv and Eleri are at the wedding.”
“What wedding?”
“Barry Martin and Caroline Griffiths,” she said, the words choking in her throat.
“I hadn’t heard. But it was Joseph she was marrying. Why Barry?”
Trying to talk casually, she explained about Barry gallantly deciding to give the baby Joseph’s name.
“For a while I thought you and Barry might have—”
“Yes, we might have, if it hadn’t been for you!”
“If he chucked you because of his mother and me, well, you haven’t missed much, love.”
“Mam said he could be my half-brother.” She whispered the hated words.
“Your mother said what? That’s rubbish. Joseph was ours. There’s no denying that. But after your mother and I married, Nia and I didn’t see each other for almost seven years.”
“It isn’t true?”
“Here, look at these if you don’t believe me.”
He handed her some photographs showing Joseph with Nia, looking very like her, and one of Nia with her husband Carl and a very young Barry. “Barry followed his father in looks and build. Joseph took after his mother. Just as well really, or we’d never have kept the secret all these years. If Joseph had turned out to be a replica of me like our poor Lewis-boy, there’d have been no way of holding the clucking tongues would there?”
Rhiannon walked home in despair. She had turned Barry away for no reason. Why hadn’t she been sensible and discussed it with him? That way the truth might have settled the matter. But no, she had to storm off, make hasty decisions in her confusion and panic and refuse to listen to even a phone call. She began to realise that she was more like her hot-headed mother than she had been willing to admit.
A few days later when Barry came to the shop to deliver some advertising leaflets, she told him the reason she had turned him down.
“What a mess,” he groaned. “I’m married to Caroline although we both know it can never lead to love. And you and I can never be together.”
“I should have told you.”
“I can hardly blame you for not discussing it. We’ve all had our lives ruined by too many secrets.” He frowned and added, “Talking about secrets, I’m wondering if my mother knows about the baby and my wedding?” He looked at her quizzically, waiting for her to say she and his mother were in touch.
“About the baby on the way, yes. She was told on the day of the funerals. But about you marrying Caroline, I don’t know. But I did have a card yesterday.” She handed him a view of Trafalgar Square and he read that his mother had found herself a flat and was working in a toy shop.
“You don’t have an address?” he asked. “I thought you and she might be in touch because of the shop.”
Rhiannon shook her head.
“Rhiannon, couldn’t we meet now and again, just to talk? Nothing more, I promise.”
Again she shook her head. “I don’t want us to end up like your mother and my father. Just think of the harm that little affair has caused.”
“The ripples have certainly spread wide, haven’t they?” he sighed.
In a small flat not far from Ealing Station, Nia was feeling more lonely than at any time in her life. She had always prided herself on not depending on anyone to make her content. But here, so far from everyone she knew and cared about, her attitude had changed and she admitted to herself that she was as vulnerable as everyone else. She had found a job in a toy shop and the owner was very kind, helping her to learn the trade, and she prided herself on this success but she wanted someone of her own. With her darling Joseph dead and Barry probably intending to marry Rhiannon, she desperately wanted someone to belong to. She wanted Lewis.
Caroline ran the house for Barry and waited every day to hear that her mother-in-law was coming home. What would she think of her new daughter-in-law? She didn’t think she’d be pleased. Each day she scrubbed and cleaned, and filled the pantry with food. At least Nia wouldn’t be able to criticize the way she had looked after things.
“I miss the wool shop, Mam,” she told her mother on one of her daily visits. “I knew every inch of stock and all the customers were friends.”
“Come home, love,” Janet said. “Come home, and once the baby’s born we’ll take care of him, me and your Dad, and you can go back to the shop. I know they want you back.”
“I can’t. I owe it to Barry to stay, at least until his mother comes back. He’s done so much for me.”
“Ask him. It might be what he wants too. There are times when honesty is the only way forward,” Janet said.
“Another of your mother-in-law’s wise sayings?” Caroline teased.
“Yes, of course. But seriously, you should ask him. He might be as glad to get back to his life as you’ll be.”
“Divorce you mean? You wouldn’t mind?” She and Barry had intended this, but Caroline had not wanted to discuss it with her parents as early as this.
“Never been a divorce in the family so far as I know, but eventually yes, why not? At least you won’t have to wait seven years now. The war changed all that.”
In the room that had been Caroline’s bedroom, Basil was repairing the chest of drawers he had bought back from Eleri. With no flat to furnish, she had told him she had no need of it. Basil had decided to clean it up and give it to her anyway. There must be space in the Lewises’ house for a small item like this and it was rather pretty.
He had rubbed it down with sandpaper and now was taking out each drawer, intending to paint it white and decorate it with flower transfers. Slightly embarrassed by this rather feminine occupation, he kept the door firmly locked.
One drawer refused to open and he took out the one underneath it and looked up to see what was holding it. An envelope was jammed between the drawer and the frame and he spent several minutes taking it out intact. Spidery handwriting gave the addressee as Arfon Weston, but the address was not the Weston’s house, but a small one not far from the Lewises’ in Sophie Street. In his ponderous way, Basil tucked the letter in his pocket to read later. Telling Eleri about his find would be an excuse to call and see her.
Rhiannon was making a success of the shop. Although rationing continued, her friendly manner and the good and varied stock at Temptations meant people walked the extra distance from the main road to use their coupons with her. She had also more than doubled her selection of greetings cards. A rep had called uninvited and shown her his range. Finding a space on the counter for a shallow box, she had agreed to give it a try.
“I’ll call again in a month, Miss Lewis.” Henry Harris left her his card and the impression that he was a man similar to her father, an expert salesman who used charm like a tool of his particular trade.
Girls who worked in shops had difficulty getting their own shopping done as the hours in most shops were the same. Rhiannon was aware of this and stayed open an extra few minutes most days so they could finish at half-past five and still buy their requirements on the way home. Word of this spread and the last half hour of the day was always busier than the first.
The display of china had grown, and she was careful to include a selection of lower priced ornaments as well as more expensive ones, so her window was inspiration for birthday presents. The small items she stocked for the convenience of her customers, like string, luggage labels, ceiling wax, stationery and pencils, meant that some came for these items and stayed to buy sweets.
“Once rationing ends I think we’ll do well, Mam,” she told Dora one evening in late April.
“Don’t you get fed up of working at the shop, helping out here and never going out?” her mother asked. “When did you last have some fun, love?”
“I don’t do much here any more,” Rhiannon said, smiling at Eleri. “You two manage most of it before I get home.”
“Mam’s right though,” Eleri said. “you should be having some fun.”
“You and me both,” Rhiannon sighed.
Rhiannon and Dora were worried about Eleri. The sparkle had gone from her, yet she didn’t discuss Lewis-boy or appear to grieve in the normal way. She filled her day with household chores and even spent a little time in the garden that was desperately in need of attention. But she never went out with friends, refusing all Rhiannon’s attempts to persuade her. “Basil told me he has a couple of bicycles for sale. D’you fancy joining the Sunday Club?” she asked then, with little hope.
“Going off for the day with the crowd on bikes?”
“Why not? They take a packed lunch and buy tea somewhere and get back in the early evening. Go on, let’s try it.”
“Ask Viv, he might join with you,” Dora suggested and to Rhiannon’s surprise and Dora’s relief, both Eleri and Viv agreed.
Basil wanted three pounds each for the old bicycles, but for Viv he found a slightly better one for which he charged six.
“Where do you get all this stuff, Basil?” Eleri asked. “Isn’t there anything you’re asked for that you can’t get?”
He looked her up and down in a suggestive manner and winked. “I’ll answer that later on, right?”
“But how do you get what people ask you for?” Eleri insisted, trying to ignore the funny feeling his looks were creating.
“Whatever it is that someone wants, there’s one standing idle somewhere, abandoned by its owner and begging for someone like me to come along and make an offer. I keep my eyes open and remember what I see and where, and I match owner to buyer and rake in a bit of profit. I buy and sell but don’t need to keep stock. The whole town of Pendragon Island is my warehouse.”
On the first Sunday that they joined the cycling club they realised why Viv had been so keen to come. Joan and Megan Weston were there, wearing the shortest shorts they had ever seen, and riding brand new blue and white bicycles. These had been bought by their doting grandmother. Jack Weston came on a machine that was far less grand, to keep an eye on the Weston girls on instructions from that same doting grandmother.
Basil surprised them by turning up on a smart racing bike which he had borrowed from a friend, “to see if I like it,” he explained. With his skinny frame and long legs, Eleri whispered to Rhiannon that he looked like a figure made from pipe cleaners.
Jack Weston watched the way Viv continually changed places to be as near to the girls as he could and on the way home he said, “Don’t get any ideas about Joan or Megan, mate. The family would chop you up and feed you to the birds if they thought you were getting hopeful about either of those two.
“What are you talking about?” Viv demanded. “I am allowed to talk to them I suppose? This is a social club! If they’re so selective they shouldn’t have joined.”
“Talk to them yes. Get ideas, no. Nothing to me, Viv, just a friendly warning.”
“What’s brought this on? Has anything been said?”
“Nothing.”
“Then pipe down.” Moving up through the gears, Viv rode outside the group of cycles and took the lead.
Within minutes, Jack joined him. “Sorry, I just thought you were heading for deep water that’s all.”
“I can swim very well, thanks!” Viv signalled for a left-hand turn and the snaking double column followed the curve down a lane which led to a thatched tea room where they all dismounted. In the crush finding seats, Megan whispered to Viv, “What did Jack want?”
“Tried to warn me off. We’ll have to be a bit careful, until we’re ready to tell everyone.”
They had been meeting for the past few weeks. Brief, unsatisfactory meetings, when Megan managed a rare escape from her twin sister. They held hands but had not yet kissed.
Basil sat between Eleri and Rhiannon and during the meal he told them about the envelope he had found. “It was in the chest of drawers I got for you so it’s yours, by right. I haven’t opened it, thought you’ll like to do that, Eleri. I’ll bring it over one evening,” he promised. No sense showing them now, even though it was in his jacket pocket. Silly to waste the opportunity to call and see Eleri.
Basil called at the Lewises’ house an hour before Eleri was due to leave for work the following evening and offered to walk with her. Before they left he took out the envelope which he still hadn’t examined. The address was clear enough but when Viv smoothed the faded envelope they saw in the top, left corner the words, “To be opened after my death”.
“Perhaps we should take this to the police or a solicitor,” Viv said.
“Not bloody likely. There could be some money in it!” Carefully easing away the flap, Basil took out the folded letter and read,
‘I, Daniel Sharp, of Longman’s cottages, Sophie Street, Pendragon Island, freely admit being responsible for the fire that damaged the warehouse and shop of Arfon Weston. The affore mentioned Arfon Weston received insurance payment and for my part in it I was given twenty-five pounds to repay my debts.’
The letter went on to give dates and what part he and Arfon had played in the fire. A diagram showed where the fire was started with a clear explanation of exactly how. The confession ended with Daniel Sharp saying he couldn’t go to his maker with his conscience so heavily loaded.
“Bloody ’ell,” Basil gasped. “Did I say there might be money in it!”
“You can’t tell anyone,” Viv said.
“I can offer to sell it.”
“That’s blackmail!” Eleri gasped. “Don’t get involved, Basil, please.”
“Offering to sell an old letter with historical value, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Please, Basil.” Eleri touched his arm. “It’s wrong.”
“Wrong to set fire to your own place and claim on the insurance. That’s arson,” he replied, his eyes gleaming. “Come on, Viv, we’ll see Eleri safe to work then go and see your boss, eh?”
“Please be careful, both of you.” Eleri said.
She clearly didn’t approve and Basil turned to her and asked, “Worried about me are you? Really worried? Like you care?”
“Of course I care, silly fool that you are, you need a keeper.”
“You offering?” he asked with a wink. “Come on, I’ll be late for work.”
Basil’s face was a picture of happy disbelief.
“D’you think she really does care, Viv?” he asked after leaving Eleri at the cinema.
“I think she might. More fool her! Lewis-boy hurt her badly, him being found with Joan and Megan. I think she’d appreciate someone to fuss over her.”
“Tomorrow, I’m going to get a job,” Basil announced.
“Never!”
“Yes, I’m getting a job. But first, let’s show this to old man Weston.”
“Talking about jobs… I might lose mine over this if it turns out to be some sort of joke. Employers don’t like their workers to blab.”
“We’ll forget it if you like?”
“No damned fear, boy!”
Arfon Weston was not pleased at being disturbed. When Victoria announced the visitors he told her to tell them they must come another time. He had guests for dinner and having one of his employees calling was an irritation. They heard him telling Victoria off for her incompetence in not getting rid of them.
“We’ll wait till he can see us,” Viv said. “Sorry if it gets you a row.”
“Doesn’t matter, I’m leaving at the end of next week. Got a job in a shop.”
“Good on you.”
They waited with growing excitement. Basil was powerful with the thought that Eleri might care for him and Viv was glowing with the prospect of seeing old man Weston grovel.
They were shown into a room which was obviously Arfon’s study. Books lined the walls and a fire glowed in the grate. Arfon stood in front of the fire and demanded to know why they’d had the audacity to disturb him.
Basil opened the letter and read it out. “Here, let me see that!” Arfon demanded, holding out his hand.
Basil danced gleefully away, hiding the offending letter behind his back. “No fear. With a fire so handy and your reputation for arson? I’m not TWP, man.”
“It’s nonsense, and if you think you’ll get money out of me then you’re sadly mistaken.”
“There’s more than the letter,” Viv said, “but we’ve left the rest somewhere safe. There’s a receipt for the petrol, a plan showing the exact place where he started the fire – on your instructions, there’s even a note in your handwriting telling him where and when to meet him to be paid. Careless that was, mind.”
“All of this doesn’t add up to evidence of my guilt,” Arfon said. “No one would believe a pair like you, a disgruntled employee and a poacher.” He began to bluster then. Alarm flashed from his eyes, twin beacons of distress. “No-hopers the pair of you, trying to blackmail me into paying for something you cooked up between you! Get out of my house or I’ll—”
“Call the police, Mr Weston?” Viv asked with a smile. “We’ll just wait here till they come, shall we?”
Suddenly deflated, Arfon said, “Just, just give me until tomorrow to think about this. I want to consider it carefully. It’s obviously a put-up job. I haven’t anything to hide, mind.”
“Haven’t you, Mr Weston?”
“No! I haven’t! Now go, and I’ll see you tomorrow evening. Here at seven. All right?”
They were shown out by a frightened-looking Victoria.
“What shall we ask for?” Basil said as he and Viv walked back down into the town.
“I don’t know. I’d rather go to the police and see the man punished. Lording it over us like he does, and all the time he’s a criminal.”
“You could ask to marry Megan,” Basil suggested. “I know about you two meeting.”
“Dream time is it? All right, what would you ask for?”
“A job.”
“You? Ask for a job?”
“A job and a house to rent. In a year, when her sadness has faded, I could ask Eleri to marry me.”
Mr Weston didn’t appear in the shop the following day, for which Viv was grateful. It would have been difficult to face him and not refer to the previous evening’s confrontation. The brothers-in-law Islwyn Heath and Ryan Fowler seemed to guess there was something going on but Viv ignored their attempts to pry.
After once more escorting Eleri to work, Basil and Viv knocked on the Westons’ door. A nervous Victoria opened it and whispered, “The old man’s in a foul temper. He even shouted at poor old Gladys! You’d better watch your step.”
“Just make sure you’re listening at the door,” Basil whispered. “We might be needing you to give evidence.”
“Oh, whatever you’re planning, don’t do it! Funny mood he’s been in, all day.”
“Just be sure and listen. Right?”
“Forget it, what ever it is, and go home,” Victoria pleaded. Ignoring the warning, they sauntered in as if attending a social event.
Arfon was standing in front of the fire as before and he was obviously going to try and flatter them and cajole them into burning the evidence. He offered them seats, which they refused, offered them a drink which they also declined. Clearing his throat he began, “I’ve thought carefully about what you brought to show me,” he said, “and first of all I want to thank you for bringing it to my attention. I appreciate your loyalty Viv, and it won’t go unrewarded.” He walked up and down as if he were giving a talk to a large audience.
“Now, although I am convinced it is a practical joke – and a very good one,” he attempted a laugh here but Viv and Basil remained stony-faced, “it would be embarrassing for this to become public knowledge and my family would be unhappy at that sort of publicity, even though the end result would prove me blameless. It’s all so long ago! I think it’s best if we burn the thing and forget we ever saw it, don’t you?”
“Damn it all! There we go again, Viv,” Basil said. “His first thought is to set fire to it.”
Arfon continued as if Basil hadn’t spoken. “Now I want to reward you both for your effectiveness in spotting this for what it is and saving me and my family any distress. Hand me the papers and I will give you both one hundred pounds each.”
“You deny what the letter accuses you of then?”
“Of course I deny it. Setting fire to my own place? Why would I do that?”
“The new premises built after the fire are smarter than the old one.”
“I could have you for that!” the old man snarled. “That’s slander that is. Accusing me of deliberately burning it down to get a new building.”
“Want to try it?” Viv asked.
“I’d rather settle it between ourselves,” the old man muttered.
“And you’re definitely not guilty?”
“Of course I’m not guilty!”
“Pity. We thought you’d at least be honest with us.”
“Where are you going?” Arfon asked, as they moved towards the door.
“We hoped you’d be honest, sir,” Viv said.
“All right. All right! I did pay that Daniel what’s-his-name to burn it. All right? Now, let’s settle the matter and that’ll be an end to it.”
“And you’ll pay us one hundred pounds, each?”
“You’ll have it tomorrow morning.”
“No thanks,” Viv said. “We’re going to the police. Now, does this mean I’ve been sacked again?”
Leaving the room they told Victoria to put on her coat and meet them at the back door, then the three of them went to talk to the police.
The investigation took several weeks. Arfon was called in for questioning several times. The local papers took as much of the story as the law allowed. Viv and Basil both had a turn of fortunes: Viv was out of a job and Basil applied successfully for work as night watchman at the furniture factory. They were treated like heroes by some and as fools by others. Megan viewed him as a traitor and vowed never to speak to him again.
“It would never have worked, I know that,” he told Jack. “She and Joan have been spoilt by your grandmother, given everything they want. How could I compete with that? No, it was only a dream.”
“You couldn’t have afforded her handbags, let alone her clothes,” Jack chuckled.
“Doesn’t it upset you, them having so much more than you? I don’t see old Mrs Weston giving to you like she gives to them.”
“Grandmother Weston spoilt her own twin daughters, and now she’s able to do it all over again with twin granddaughters. It’s as if she’s been given a second life, living it all just like before, with two lovely girls and the money to give them practically everything they wish for.
“No, I don’t begrudge her her fun. I don’t need all the fripperies the girls do. It gives Grandmother so much pleasure and pushes back old age. She’s that young mother again with enough money to indulge her daughters, not an old lady approaching the end of her days. She’s that young mother sharing their confidences, helping them disobey their father, involving herself in their flirting and the silly extravagances which they keep secret from their parents.”
“After a childhood like that, she couldn’t love someone like me. It couldn’t possibly work.”
“Not if you hate old man Weston enough to get him sent to prison, it couldn’t!” Jack said harshly. “Why did you do it, Viv?”
“Because no one should get away with a crime like that. And, if I’m honest, because I was bitter about not being allowed to go out with Megan, and angry because Rhiannon lost Barry and with Dad for messing everything up. I wanted to hit back. Hitting back is childish, Jack, but it definitely helps.”
“And now?”
“Get a job I suppose.”
“If someone will trust you!”
“You think I was wrong to expose him?”
“He’s my grandfather.”
“Pretend he isn’t. Was I wrong?”
“No. If it had been anyone else I’d have to say you weren’t.” Although Jack admitted he had been correct to expose the crime, Viv knew he had lost him as a friend.
After a few days of searching for something better, Viv accepted a job in an ironmongery warehouse checking stock and ordering replenishments – and hated it. There was so much repetition and he was working alone, so the hours hung heavily. He told Rhiannon that his days seemed as much like a prison sentence as the one hanging over old man Weston! But he needed to earn money and he didn’t think another decorator’s suppliers would take him once his betrayal of Weston was general knowledge.
He had some savings, money put away in the futile hope of one day having something to offer Megan. But that was a fanciful dream only. Although dreams did sometimes become reality, and the Lewis family was surely due for something good.
During those days in the new job, Viv dwelt on what he and Basil had done with some shame. He hadn’t thought it through, dwelling only on the gratification of seeing the high and mighty Westons brought down. The idea of Arfon Weston ending up in prison was something that made him wish they had done what the old man had asked; burnt the letter and forgotten all about.
Another result of the evidence of arson, however, cheered him more than a little. The accounts of Weston’s Wallpaper and Paint were thoroughly examined and the evidence of another fraud came to light. Jack’s father, Islwyn Heath, had been stealing from the company steadily over several years.
Viv realised that although Jack hadn’t resented his cousins being given more than he, his father obviously had. Islwyn Heath said in his defence that it was to make up for the unfairness of the treatment of the Weston girls compared with that of his son. He said truculently that he didn’t feel guilty, he had just redressed the balance.